British Comedy Guide
Rentadick. Image shows left to right: Utta Armitage (Julie Ege), Hobbs (Richard Beckinsale). Credit: Rank Organisation
Rentadick

Rentadick

  • 1972 film

Farcical comic adventure of a private security firm whose staff are individually contracted to work against their latest big client. Stars James Booth, Richard Briers, Julie Ege, Ronald Fraser, Donald Sinden and more.

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Rentadick trivia

Originally written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman, producers made so many changes to the film's script that the duo had their credits removed from the finished production.

Cleese and Chapman originally developed the script with the intent of starring in the film themselves, alongside luminaries Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, under the directorship of Charles Crichton.

The original film was nearing a point where filming could begin when David Frost, under whose auspices as producer it had been developed, sold the rights to Ned Sherrin. Sherrin refused to countenance Crichton as director, so every other member of the team walked away from the project.

Cleese and Chapman's original script was completed in 1968, a year before Monty Python's Flying Circus debuted, but was not put into production until the summer of 1971, in-between Series 2 and 3 of Flying Circus.

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